Limitless
by Masquerading as Quality
Summary: There are times in Marian Hawke's life when she can see endless possibilities stretching out before her in every direction. Unfettered by the necessity of an immediate decision, she might take a step in literally any direction, and shape with her footsteps a story for herself unlike the one that lies down any other path. These are the times when she is happiest.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hi hello! I've been obsessed with DA2 since I played it back in the fall (I went Origins, Inquisition, then II, because of course), and I've been writing mostly short one-shot type things for it, and for Dragon Age generally.

So recently I felt overcome by the desire to write a long piece for my DA2 children, and since I'm almost finished with a few other major projects, it seemed like a good time to start something new.

Hawke is one of those rare characters that I can kinda ship with a lot of different people (I usually get Attached to my ships hahaha). This story will likely heavily feature Fenris/Hawke and Bethany/Isabela, but will explore other pairings along the way.

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Hopeless**

There were times in Marian Hawke's life when she could see endless possibilities stretching out before her, in every possible direction. Unfettered by the necessity of an immediate decision, she might potentially take a step in literally any direction, and shape with her footsteps a story for herself unlike the one that lay down any other path.

These were the times when she was happiest.

All too soon, for it was always too soon, a decision must be made. Or, if one twiddled one's thumbs long enough, a decision came barreling through the door without so much as a how do you do, and one migt find herself standing among ashes and rubble, watching helplessly as option after option receded before her eyes, leaving only a handful of ways to move forward at the absolute best.

This was the way she had left Lothering: holding a handful of belongings under one arm while they ran and fought, both Marian and Bethany throwing magic over their shoulders without a thought because they were sure they would die anyway, scarcely daring a glance behind them as they neared the top of the last hill that would obscure what remained of their home forever.

This was the way she had lost Carver: no, no, no, stay with me, damn, shit, why didn't I learn any healing magic, Beth, can't you do anything better than this, no, no, of course not, not for this. Who could do anything for this but some kind of miracle worker? He was practically rent into pieces, he was half bled out already, he was gone.

Just like that. Possibilities cut short on a chopping block. Very efficient, was a warrior's death.

This was the way she had arrived in Kirkwall: the way back receding with the blighted boat that brought them here, all of them sick and flea-bitten and half-starved, hunched over as they staggered about, reacquainted themselves with sun and fresh air and solid ground and enough room to stand. No way forward, for Marian had attempted to employ both charm and force in equal measure to little avail.

No way forward, not really, but rather a way down. We'll just have to work our way back up, her mother said, and she agreed blithely, but Marian was not much of a forward thinker. She was acutely aware of the here and the now, so much so that anything outside of it seemed vague and distant and fleeting at best. Sometimes she could see endless possibilities stretching out before her in every possible direction, but for the first year she spent in Kirkwall, all she saw was blood on her hands.

She did a damn good job. As it turned out, she was rather well-suited to killing people. Why, after a month or so, she'd mostly stopped crying herself to sleep after every assignment, and by the time she could afford food, she could almost keep it down! Practically living the high life, she'd said to her sister.

Marian did enough work for the both of them. Bethany had somehow, in all the world's wickedness, managed to retain a kind of lightness Marian could only play at. Marian would not let that be taken from her, not as long as she lived and breathed. Bethany traveled around with her, stood behind her, and handled the matters which did not usually require cold-blooded murder.

Hawke traveled with warriors and quickly learned to blend in. She watched and copied their moves, admired the way two-handed warriors moved, the way they could wield swords the size of her entire body, and took the art for herself. She imagined how useful it would be to combine the warrior's fighting style with magic, and dreamed of crafting the perfect staff for just such a purpose.

This was the first thought in that entire year that gave her any small shred of hope for a better future.

The second was Varric.

Varric was a slippery sort of person. He answered questions with more questions sometimes, or avoided direct answers with amusing anecdotes and aphorisms. Hawke knew well enough never to trust a smooth talker, for she was one, herself.

Nevertheless, Varric had something Hawke desperately needed. Well, sure, a way into an expedition that could set her and her family up for life—that was a pleasant enough thing to encounter. But far more than that, Varric had some sort of bizarre belief in Hawke that rivaled even that of her little sister. Varric believed Hawke was worth something.

Being out of indentured servitude was a lot like being in it. Hawke still spent the better part of her time killing people for coin, she was just a bit freer to go about her merry way during her off time. She reconnected with Aveline, which felt a little bit like reconnecting with a brick wall that gently disapproved of her, and mined Varric's neverending supply of gossip and hearsay for other people who might give her work or information or some other ineffable quality that would aid her in this Deep Roads expedition nonsense she was evidently pursuing wholeheartedly now. Decisions sometimes made themselves that way.

She quickly picked up a colourful array of acquaintances only slightly less seedy than those she maintained from her mercenary days. Varric had taken under his wing a sad-eyed Dalish elf who got herself turned around in dangerous parts of town at least once a week, and she had immediately taken a bit of a shine to Hawke. _Might you come visit me sometime_ , she asked, _in the alienage?_ And in the face of her giant puppy-dog eyes, Hawke could not help but to agree.

Merrill was not an obviously seedy person; rather, she was a very adorable blood mage, and blood magic had a nasty tendency to end in, well, blood.

Varric also pointed her to a former Grey Warden, if such a thing existed, who might be able to help them find a way into the Deep Roads. He was rumoured to be a bleeding heart sort of healer, of so-called 'unconventional' methods. Anders was stone-faced, humourless, and possesed by a literal demon as it turned out, but through all of that, Hawke could clearly see that he meant well, and with all the scum she'd spent the last year dealing with, meaning well went an awfully long way in her book.

Anders joined Hawke and Varric at the tavern some nights, but Hawke gathered that it was more for a drink than for the company. He got along much better with Bethany, actually, who was much kinder and less prone to mockery than either Hawke or Varric, and so one night they even coerced her into joining them that Anders might have someone he didn't completely loathe talking to if he wished it.

That was the night they met Isabela.

It was like something out of a bard's wildest tale. They'd just come in when there was some sort of commotion rising around the bar. Leering men and angry murmurs slowly rising in volume, then suddenly a woman appearing from within the fold, taking all of them on at once. Almost as soon as it had begun, she was holding a knife to the throat of a man twice her size wielding a sword, and Hawke and her friends stood slack-jawed in the doorframe.

"By the Maker, I think I'm in love," said Hawke.

Varric chuckled breathlessly and gave Hawke a shove forward. "I'd recognize that description anywhere. Lotta stories about her."

The woman turned to watch her assailant flee, and her eyes landed squarely on Hawke. She quirked one eyebrow and inclined her head, and Hawke took this as her cue to approach.

"That was quite a show," she said by way of greeting.

The woman shrugged. "Yes, well," she said dismissively. "Got to keep your wits about you in a place like this."

"I'll take your word for it," said Hawke.

Isabela smirked, looked her up and down. "You look like you can handle yourself."

"On the contrary," Hawke retorted lightly, "hardly anyone can handle me."

The woman's dark eyes positively glittered with interest. "I do love a challenge. Join me for a drinK?"

"I'm here with friends, actually," Hawke gestured to her gaggle of strange companions settling themselves into a table. "Care to join us, instead?"

The woman considered them with a furrowed brow and the faintest hint of amusement. Hawke broke away from admiring her only to set eyes upon her sister, Bethany, looking utterly awestruck.

Now, Hawke had never been particularly astute at picking up on attractions—sometimes even her own. She lacked a great deal in subtlety, but she liked to think she made up for it in charm, or failing that, skill. It had been some time, she realized in the span of that instant, since she'd found herself particularly interested in anyone outside of what they could offer her.

Fighting for survival tended to knock everything else out of you that way. Hawke had longed for nothing but the dawn of the next day for nearly two years now, and seeing this mystery woman who so masterfully wielded both charm and daggers had been a welcome change. She'd seen countless possibilities unfolding before her in the glimmer of this woman's eyes. Possibilities of passion, of fun, of adventure the likes of which she'd barely even remembered to dream of when she was busy keeping her family from utter starvation.

But she knew her sister like she knew herself. She knew every step Bethany would take before she took it, and she knew the ways of Bethany's heart far better than she knew the ways of her own.

Bethany had had her first and last crush at the age of fourteen. She'd looked at a boy in Lothering with those same sparkling doe eyes. She'd befriended him easily, and made him lovely little gifts, works of art from scraps of nothing she'd found lying around. He'd found out she was a mage and meant to run directly to the Templars.

Fortunately, Marian had intervened, and had threatened him so graphically that he'd sworn secrecy. Bethany had cried consistently for a month and sporadically for the next six, and she hadn't looked upon anyone with so much as a flicker of attraction since then.

She hadn't, that was to say, until just now.

In the present, where little more than an instant had passed, the mystery woman spoke, "All right, I'll play." She flung a disarming smile in Hawke's direction and reached out to cup her cheek. "But only because you've struck upon my soft spot for scruffy misfits."

Hawke felt a smile tugging at the corners of her own lips, and she offered the woman her arm. They made it all the way to the table before Hawke realized, "Everyone, this is...I do beg your pardon, it seems I haven't caught your name."

"I do believe I haven't thrown it," she replied lightly. "Isabela."

"This is Isabela," Hawke echoed, more than a little lost in the curious glittering of her eyes. But she tore her gaze away and gestured around the table. "This is Varric, Merrill, Anders, and of course, my dazzling sister, Bethany."

Hawke slid in beside Varric, and Isabela beside Bethany, and the conversation that night was something new and electric and wonderful. Bethany was friendly and warm-hearted enough to coerce Anders into a conversation as expected, but Merrill and Anders also fascinated one another into strange conversations of their own. Varric asked Isabela about some of the more absurd (and lewd) stories he'd heard about her travels, and Bethany made small, hesitant assertions of her abject admiration which Isabela took gladly.

"And what brought you here, lovely?" Isabela asked Bethany. "Fereldan, right? You've got that look about you."

Bethany tucked her hair needlessly behind her ear before she managed, "A Blight. The Blight. We escaped from Lothering."

"Well," said Isabela with that disarming smirk. 'If it took a Blight for me to make your acquaintance, kitten, it will have been entirely worth it."

Bethany went bright red in the face, Hawke leaned heavily on Varric's shoulder while utterly failing to stifle a snort of laughter, and Isabela's offhand smirk broke into a brilliant, toothy grin.

Varric showed them how to play a card game, and they stayed up way too late drinking and talking and sometimes even laughing. And oh, this night was beginning to feel like one of those times in Hawke's life when she could see endless possibilities stretching out before her, in every possible direction! There were matters that would require her attention soon enough, but in this moment countless paths lay open at her feet, reflected in the faces of these curious people she had collected, or who had perhaps collected her.

This night felt like a beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Speechless**

Living with Uncle Gamlen was a bit like living with a particularly grouchy old cat, with twice the trouble and none of the charm. He whined late into the night about nothing at all, he left moldy old food around everywhere, and he occasionally knocked things off of tables out of spite.

"Has he moved that bowl of porridge since we got here?" Bethany remarked under her breath one evening when they came in, but not quietly enough.

"You!" Gamlen came thundering across the tiny room. "Am I your personal secretary now?"

"I'm afraid the position doesn't pay very well," Hawke retorted.

"Ha ha. A letter came for you. A letter!" He gesticulated wildly at his long-abandoned writing desk. "For you! At my house! You're bloody welcome I didn't set fire to it."

"Warmest thanks as always, Uncle," said Hawke as she took up the envelope, but this was quickly followed by a genuine groan.

"What is it?" Bethany wondered.

Hawke dragged her hand over her face, struggled not to plummet into a deep-seated sort of despair. "Meeran," she said at last.

It wasn't like she'd exactly stopped working for him, but rather that every time she collected her payment and took her leave, she hoped she might never darken his proverbial doorway again. She hadn't desperately needed work in a couple of weeks now—Aveline's fancy guard nonsense and a few tips from Varric had given her plenty to live on and also put away for the expedition without feeling like she ought to be digging her fingers deeper into the city's dirty work.

"Can't you..." Bethany started, but didn't finish. They both knew she couldn't.

Hawke was in no position to turn up her nose at work, especially not with the assertion that her would-be employer 'always paid well.' She could and would say what she liked about Meeran, but he knew how to turn a profit.

"You're going to get yourself into serious trouble if you keep wandering into dark alleyways at night," Bethany tsked instead.

"Not like I'll be unarmed," Hawke replied, then added, sweetly, "or unaccompanied."

Bethany groaned. "You're going to drag me along? Not for Meeran, please? He's so skeevy!"

Hawke raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Not for Meeran, by the Maker, would I do that to you? Some dwarf. Sounds like it's not up Meeran's alley."

"Sounds like it's vague and dangerous," Bethany countered.

Hawke waved her hands dismissively. "Everything is vague and dangerous," she said lightly. "Anyway, you just said you were worried about me."

A longer and louder groan. "Worried enough for the both of us, it seems."

"Do you suppose I could talk Aveline into going with us? I'd rather put my days of pretending to be a shitty warrior behind me."

"Talked me into it, didn't you?" Bethany retorted. "Anyway, I think you're a fine fake warrior."

"Stop, I'll get a big head."

The dwarf in question was so jumpy it almost made Hawke nervous by mere proximity. He was new to the surface and possibly even the smuggling business, and by the sound of it he was dealing in lyrium, of all things. "If you have to kill them," Anso said by way of dismissal, "I guess it can't be avoided."

"Maker's breath," Varric muttered as they walked away. "Between the Chantry, the Carta, and the Coterie..."

"By the Paragons, not so loud!" Anso whispered after them.

"Just so long as it's not smuggling humans," Hawke said with a heavy sigh. It couldn't even be midnight yet and she already felt bone-tired. " _'If you have to kill them_ ,'" she mimicked Anso once they were around the corner. "As though he didn't go to the Red Iron for help in the first place."

"Just remember the mansion in Hightown, Hawke," said Varric. "Enough coin to set you and your family up for life."

"Yes, yes."

So they skulked down to Kirkwall's elf alienage and set about the routine slaughter, and Hawke flexed her magic for the first time in ages. Varric had 'acquired' a staff sturdy enough for her to use until she got the materials together to craft something for herself, and all other circumstances aside, it did feel wonderful not to keep her mana so firmly in check as she'd had to do for the better part of her life.

The last of the smugglers fell, and Hawke hung her staff on her back, bright with flowing mana and flushed from the exertion, feeling just the tiniest bit closer to alive than usual. Varric set about picking the lock on the chest they'd been sent for, but when he kicked it open...

"Empty," he said.

"Shit," Hawke replied, and the rush of excitement left her abruptly.

"Waste of time."

Hawke's shoulders tensed, and her hand trailed to her staff. "Did someone put us up to this?"

Varric shrugged. "I guess we'll just have to go back to Anso and tell him."

But when they exited the little hovel, true to Hawke's intuition, more trouble awaited them. Hawke didn't think much of it at the time, but one of them had shouted "That's not the elf!"

And another had said, "No matter, our orders were clear: whoever enters the house."

And then it was like there were people everywhere all at once, coming from all sides, and everything sort of became a blur. Arrows and blades and fire and ice, and they all fell or they ran away, one after the other, and Hawke thought she might be bleeding, but she couldn't feel anything.

She twirled her staff in her hands and landed a hit with the blunt end right to the diaphragm of the warrior who'd dared to accost her. He died with a knife to his throat and Hawke's boot on his chest, and as the life left his eyes, Hawke returned to her senses.

"Well," she said quietly. "That was a shit job from start to finish." She felt apart from herself, like she was watching from somewhere else, like she barely even recognized the person she was observing. There was blood on her hands, blood on her abdomen, blood at the corners of her mouth, but there was also a heavy kind of numbness settling into her skin, her muscles, the very marrow of her bones, and she couldn't bring herself to move, couldn't bring herself to look away from the dead eyes of her latest victim.

"Hawke?" Varric's voice, growing closer.

"If Anso doesn't at least cough up a bit of coin for our troubles," she said, "I think I'll spear him and Meeran both with the same sword."

"Right there with ya, Hawke," Varric's hand on her arm, reassurance, reminding her of the present moment, but it felt like _nothing_. All she could see were the glassy eyes of the dead man at her feet. Was this all that was left for her now?

"Hawke?"

"Hawke," Aveline now.

"Marian," Bethany, too.

"Right." Hawke clenched her hand into a fist and stood, rent her eyes away from the body at last to meet the warm hazel eyes of her sister. "Sorry."

Bethany took her free hand and squeezed it. "Let's go home."

But before they could so much as take a step towards the alienage's exit, an unfamiliar man appeared, assessed the wreckage at their feet, and swore loudly. His eyes landed, as eyes so often seemed to do these days, squarely upon Hawke. "I dunno who you are, friend, but you've made a serious mistake."

"Sort of knew that already," Hawke muttered, before she could hold her tongue. She knew how this ended.

"Lieutenant! I want everyone in the clearing, now!"

Hawke's arms and legs were profoundly sore. And she was so _tired_. She had been leaning heavily on her staff, and it seemed to take every last ounce of strength she had to draw it across her chest and widen her stance once more. Again, that faint, nagging question: was this all there was for her now? Death, and slaughter, and scrounging around for a measly sum so she might prolong the times in between the death and slaughter and scrounging?

But a moment passed in silence, and no great abundance of soldiers came pouring into the alienage. Around the corner, there was a dreadful, sickly sound, and one single man came stumbling into view. He was bleeding as though from a wound in his chest, yet his armour remained intact. He choked out but one word— "Captain." —before he fell to the pavement with a metallic thud.

Eyes affixed on the dead man, Hawke missed the appearance of another from the shadows, until, "Your men are dead," he said, in a voice low and rough like distant thunder, and for a moment the rest of the world seemed to come to a screeching halt.

Her eyes shot up. The newcomer was an elf in spiked armour, dark-skinned and probably slight of frame, though standing as he did over a body and at the top of a flight of stairs, he seemed to tower over all of them. His white hair glowed unnaturally in the moonlight. So, too, did strange markings that swirled over the bare skin of his arms.

"Your trap," the elf continued as he descended into the clearing, "has failed." He walked past the captain who had threatened them like it was nothing. "I suggest running back to your master while you can."

What happened next happened so quickly that it would take everyone present months to sort it out in their minds. Hawke was fairly certain it went like this.

"You're going nowhere, slave," said the captain, and grabbed the elf by the shoulder.

The elf's strange markings then truly came alight, like someone had lit a blue-white flame inside him. He whirled around, crying, "I am not a slave!", shoved his fist through the captain's chest, armour and all, and then the captain made that same horrible choking noise and collapsed, as had the lieutenant before him.

The elf turned to face them, poised to spring, glowing the way Anders had when they'd first seen the demon that lay within him. He, too, looked like he might come apart at the seams, but Hawke had long since lowered her weapon in utter shock. "By the Maker, I think I'm in love," Varric later told her she had murmured to him, but she'd told him that was bullshit. She'd been sure she only said it in her head that time.

But the elf did not come apart. He did not explode into an abomination, and he did not lunge forward to attack them. Indeed, he seemed to come back together. All at once, as soon as it had been there, the light that emanated from him went out, and he lowered his eyes. "I apologize," he said, quietly.

For once in her life, Marian Hawke was speechless.

The elf continued, eyes still downcast. "When I asked Anso to provide a distraction for the hunters, I had no idea they'd be so numerous."

"Distraction..." Hawke echoed slowly, mind still hazy and slow to process all that it had been offered in the course of a few seconds. "Distraction. You...you're responsible for this?"

"I'm the reason you're here, yes."

 _That's not the elf_. "They were looking for you."

He turned to face her again, but still did not meet her eyes. "These men were Imperial bounty hunters, seeking to recover a magister's lost property. Namely," he looked up at last, and put his hand with its spiky gauntlet to his chest, "myself."

 _I am not a slave_ , he'd cried. Bright green eyes, illuminated by the white hair, underlined by dark circles. He held eye contact with her for only an instant before he looked down again.

"They were trying to lure me out into the open," he continued, focusing somewhere around Hawke's feet. "Crude as their methods were, I could not face them alone. Fortunately, Anso..." he gestured to her, "...chose wisely, it seems."

"Well," Hawke managed slowly. "If they were really trying to recapture you, I'm glad I could help."

The elf glanced up at her again, through a curtain of moonlit white hair, but abruptly bowed his head even lower. "I...had not expected that. Perhaps the deception was unnecessary. If so, I apologize. And I thank you. If I may ask...what was in the chest? The one they kept in the house?"

"It was empty," said Hawke.

His brow furrowed. "I might have known."

"You were expecting something else?"

"I was. But I shouldn't have. It was bait. Nothing more."

"So...that's it, then?" Hawke shook her head. "All that for an empty chest?"

The elf's eyes darted down to where the captain and his lieutenant had fallen askew on the stairs. "There's more," he said, darker, harsher.

And some strange, twisting part of Hawke was glad of it. Glad she didn't have to just turn and say goodbye after all this.

"As I suspected. My...former master accompanied them to the city. I am..." he looked up at her, but didn't quite meet her eyes, "...certain you must have questions. But I must confront him before he flees. I will...need your help."

Hawke flexed her arms, adjusted her grip on the staff she'd allowed to dangle uselessly at her side for the entirety of the conversation, and found that she was not nearly as close to the verge of listlessness as she'd been before. "Well," she said, somehow managing lightness, and with a sideways glance to her other companions, "looks like it's going to be a long night."

They looked back at her, tired-eyed and mute, but nodded their assent. Bethany squeezed her shoulder.

Hawke returned her attention to the elf, who raised his eyes to meet hers once more, and took a few steps toward her, halting but decisive. "I will repay you," he said solemnly. "I swear it. He will be in Hightown."

He turned to lead the way, far more decisive now that he was not facing her. But now that the shock of battle had mostly left her, Hawke felt the spark of curiosity returning to her, and she fell into step with him. "So," she said, "does the handsome elf ever offer a lady his name?"

His brow furrowed, and he very nearly tripped over his own feet. "Uh." He chuckled, a breathy, surprised sort of thing, and cleared his throat, and his hand found the back of his neck while his gaze remained affixed firmly upon the ground before his feet. "Fenris," he said, and glanced up at her almost shyly through the curtain of his hair. "My name is Fenris."

And maybe, possibly, Hawke might be willing to admit that she felt just the tiniest bit smitten with that look he gave her then. Hawke could see a path forming, rife with possibilities, shining in his bright green eyes. One of countless others, certainly; yet she found this particular path seemed a singular one, and one she very much wanted to pursue.

An escaped slave from the Tevinter Imperium. It was a lot to take in, and the surprise of it all had jolted Hawke's mind out of what would surely have been a desensitized stupour. "Seems like a lot of effort to track down one slave," she remarked.

"Yes."

"Does it have something to do with those markings?"

and Hawke's brain was quick to set it aside for later. "So," she said instead. "Anso knew he was lying."

"Not exactly," said the elf. "Your employer was simply not who you believed."

"Seems like a lot of effort to track down one slave.


End file.
